Rough inauguration day for new Venezuelan leader

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro waves from a vehicle, next to his companion Cilia Flores, during a military ceremony recognizing him as Commander-in-chief to the military at the Paseo Los Proceres in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, April, 19, 2013. Maduro, who has the support of the Chavista bases, needs all the momentum he can muster to consolidate control of a country struggling with shortages of food and medicines; chronic power outages; one of the world's highest homicide and kidnapping ra
— AP

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro waves from a vehicle, next to his companion Cilia Flores, during a military ceremony recognizing him as Commander-in-chief to the military at the Paseo Los Proceres in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, April, 19, 2013. Maduro, who has the support of the Chavista bases, needs all the momentum he can muster to consolidate control of a country struggling with shortages of food and medicines; chronic power outages; one of the world's highest homicide and kidnapping ra
/ AP

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles said the audit will prove he won the presidency. And even if it leaves the vote standing and calms tensions, the recount will strengthen the opposition against a president whose narrow victory left him far weaker than Chavez ever was, analysts said.

"The regime has no intention of modifying the existing situation," said Vicente Torrijos, a political scientist at Colombia's Universidad del Rosario, suggesting it won't let the audit force them from office.

Still, he said, "I think this is a weak government, incredibly fragile, and it's an unsustainable regime."

The International Monetary Fund said this week that it expects Venezuela's economy to contract 0.1 percent this year compared to 5.5 percent growth in 2012 and to have the region's highest inflation at 27 percent, forcing an inevitable cutback in the public spending that was key to Chavez's popularity.

On Friday, the first day of a long holiday weekend, administration's red-clad backers were fervent but marched in relatively small numbers through the capital, dancing and blowing trumpets, led by riders on horseback and even massive bulls yoked in pairs. Opposition backers leaned out of their windows banging pots and pans in protest as government backers shot fireworks.

As Maduro addressed the crowd inside the National Assembly building, a spectator rushed the stage and pushed him away from the microphone, startling millions watching on national television with a shout that sounded like "Nicolas, my name is Jenry!" before the intruder was tackled and dragged away.

The broadcast cut away, then returned to the lectern and Maduro, who continued his speech.

"He could have shot me here," Maduro said, dressing down his security detail before continuing with his address.

Prosecutors said in a written statement that a man they identified as Yendri Sanchez Gonzalez, 28, had been detained and would be charged with unspecified crimes for interrupting the swearing-in. They offered no further details.

Maduro, 50, was declared the winner of Sunday's election by a slim 267,000-vote margin out of 14.9 million ballots cast. That did not include more than 100,000 votes cast abroad, where more than 90 percent were cast for Capriles in an earlier election against Chavez last October.

Venezuelans voted on computers that issued paper receipts used to confirm the accuracy of the electronic vote. Authorities checked 54 percent of the electronic vote against the paper receipts and registers containing the names, signatures and fingerprints of each voter.

The National Electoral Council said just before the start of the meeting in Lima that it would audit 46 percent of the vote not already scrutinized on election night. An electoral official told The Associated Press that the new process, to start next week, would replicate the one from election night.

Capriles has alleged a series of vote irregularities, some of which would be turned up by a new audit, such as charges that there was damage to 3,535 voting machines, representing 189,982 votes, and that voting rolls included 600,000 dead people. He said that many of those irregularities took place in polling locations that weren't audited on election day.